


Up In Lights

by TriffidsandCuckoos



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Gen, Tony's Inner Monologue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-11
Updated: 2012-12-11
Packaged: 2017-11-20 20:40:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/589421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TriffidsandCuckoos/pseuds/TriffidsandCuckoos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Now that he's seeing it in reality, Tony Stark can't help but wonder why the hell he didn't just put his name back up there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Up In Lights

Tony took a sip of his coffee, craned his head back, and wondered if he was getting sentimental in his middle-age.

After all, there was no other logical – key word here being _logical_ , and stop your snickering, weird mental projection of Pepper, wages could totally be docked for telepathic mockery – reason why he would be seeing this now. Granted, Stark Tower had needed some pretty extensive refurbishment after that whole thing with an alien invasion and a Norse god using it to blow a hole in the sky (Tony was probably a little bit smug about that because that’s one thing he has over Gates and Zuckerberg and all the rest – on top of the suit and, you know, the pioneering technology stopping pieces of shrapnel from ripping through his heart). Also granted, Tony’s said himself that nostalgic is the one thing nobody has ever accused him of, so the tower was never going to look the same as before. Redesign, in other words, was inevitable.

But.

That in itself does not explain why he is now looking at a massive lit-up AVENGERS on his building - _his_ building.

And no, it wasn’t like Tony just woke up this morning (or evening) and realised this. He did design this thing. He drew that word onto the plans, not anybody else. 

But, as ever, these things looked different when you saw them in real life.

Tony was really quite seriously considering running right now.

What the hell had he been thinking? Why had this ever seemed like a good idea? At what point did it possess him to trade in this frankly perfect opportunity to have his name literally up in lights for something that technically only exists in SHIELD files and easy newspaper shorthand?

Thor was on a different planet, and not just metaphorically; Barton and Romanoff both vanished off somewhere to do terrifying things to other people (fortunately); Banner said he had some things to take care of now that he was actually allowed back in the country without a ticking clock counting down to the moment the military came sniffing around; Rogers rode off somewhere, straight out of a James Dean movie (despite having never heard of James Dean, as Tony had found out the hard way). The Avengers didn’t exist. And now their name is part of the Manhattan skyline. (He would have said a permanent part, but then, he’d said the same thing about the earlier model.)

He was so absorbed in his own inner monologue – not that unusual, it wasn’t his fault, stuff on the outside’s just boring – that he absolutely did not jump when he heard from beside him, “Looks good to me.”

Steve Rogers, America’s favourite puppy and apparently also a patriotic ninja in his spare time.

Tony narrowed his eyes, if only because sneaking up on people was just rude and he was shocked and appalled by this behaviour. Hardly what he’d expect from Captain America. Where had he even come from? Had he been driving around New York this entire time?

Asking would be letting Steve know that he cared, though. Besides, always easier to pretend this was all totally normal. (If he ever saw Barton or Romanoff again, it probably would be.)

“Oh, so you like it now? Because I seem to recall you thinking it was gaudy, ugly…”

Steve smiled, very obviously not about to take it back. That, although Tony would never admit it to anyone (including Steve), was one of his better traits. Tony had to admire someone who stood by their insults as well as their sweet talk. “It’s not so bad now.”

“Growing on you? The twenty-first century tends to do that, I hear.”

“Now it stands for something better than your ego.”

Tony winced, and he was only partly playing up the reaction. “You know, you don’t hold back nearly as much as the rest of the world thinks.”

“It’s true,” Steve shrugged. “It’s okay if it’s making a statement besides the fact that you exist and you actually put up a tower with your name on it – which, I might add, is something you said the bad guy wanted to do.”

“Is this the supervillain talk again? Because I already had that with Fury. Twice.”

Steve got this odd pinched expression sometimes. Tony wondered if anybody else has spent (not wasted) time analysing it; if anybody knows it’s both annoyance and disappointment. “Tony…”

“Basically, if I try to take over the world, there’s a queue of people to take me out. I think there’s a list and everything. Possibly a raffle if they need the money.”

Steve sighed. “I’m trying to make a point here.”

“You always are.”

“I’m just saying that a tower that stands for something like the Avengers, for our team, that’s a good thing. Your ego, on the other hand, needs to be _less_ visible.”

Tony mock-saluted, retreating before Steve’s look could get any worse. “Aye aye, Cap’n,” he said, and didn’t even care it was a lame joke Barton had already made five times in the last week. (He maybe cared a bit that he’s taking inspiration from Barton of all people, except really, there was something pretty novel about meeting somebody who takes this whole thing as seriously as him.)

It wasn’t until he was safely sequestered in his workshop – in that tower, yes, these things were habit already, that’s what he did, and he had a sneaking suspicion that for all his dramatic exit Steve might have followed him here – that it hit him.

_Our team._

Huh.


End file.
